House endorses needle-exchange program for city

March 18, 1994|By Robert Timberg | Robert Timberg,Sun Staff Writer

Prodded by the appeals of three black Baltimore lawmakers, the House of Delegates yesterday agreed to let the city set up a small needle-exchange program for drug users, making passage the initiative by the full General Assembly virtually certain.

The anti-AIDS program -- Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's top priority during this year's legislative session -- passed the House by a vote of 84-51, with all but two of the city's 27-member delegation endorsing it.

"I'm very pleased," Mr. Schmoke said. "The size of the vote indicates a strong endorsement of the program. I hope this means the bill will move along to the governor's desk as quickly as possible."

The mayor has been urging the legislature to give him the authority to institute the program for three years, asserting that it would save lives without encouraging drug use.

This year, Gov. William Donald Schaefer reversed his opposition, highlighting his change of heart in his State of the State address and delivering the authority that has powered the measure to the brink of enactment.

The Senate on Wednesday passed a virtually identical bill by the narrowest of margins, 24-23.

It remains only for one chamber to approve the other's bill and the governor to sign it into law.

Amid the city's jubilation, a small cloud appeared late yesterday, when the governor's spokeswoman, Page W. Boinest, declined to state unequivocally that Mr. Schaefer would sign the measure.

She said the governor would weigh the pros and cons before making his decision.

The bill, if enacted and signed, would allow Mr. Schmoke to set up a 3-year pilot program in which selected drug users would be permitted to exchange up to 10 used needles and syringes at a time for sterile ones provided by the city.

The mayor needs the legislation because he cannot implement the program without an exemption from state law that forbids the distribution of drug paraphernalia.

Needle-exchange advocates say that the program will help prevent the spread of AIDS by intravenous drug users.

With free, clean needles available, supporters say, addicts would be less inclined to share used ones that may be infected.

Dr. Peter Beilenson, the city health commissioner, has said that the program could prevent 13 cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in its first year alone. In Baltimore, 70 percent of new HIV infections are attributed to intravenous drug use.

The human immunodeficiency virus causes AIDS.

Opponents argued that such a program will encourage and facilitate drug use, while creating the impression that the state sanctions the consumption of illegal narcotics.

Despite the narrow margin of the Senate vote, House passage had seemed likely in recent days, but not by the huge 33-vote margin by which it carried.